January 28th, 2008 | The University
The Board of Trustees of The City University of New York has elevated five world-renowned scholars in creative writing, art history, Italian American studies, history and architecture to the position of Distinguished Professor, Chancellor Matthew Goldstein announced today.
The appointments were approved unanimously by the Board of Trustees.
“These outstanding professors bring extraordinary creativity, scholarship and inspiring teaching experience to this great University,” Chancellor Goldstein said of the faculty, who were named to CUNY’s highest academic rank.
Distinguished Professorships are reserved for faculty with records of exceptional performance by national and international standards of excellence in their profession, according to Executive Vice Chancellor Selma Botman, University Provost and Chief Academic Officer. Successful candidates must demonstrate substantial evidence of outstanding performance, including a significant body of high-quality work in areas of importance in their disciplines. In addition to superb scholarship, Distinguished Professors are expected to participate in appropriate teaching and service roles in their colleges, she said.
The ranking also functions as a tool to recruit new faculty or retain existing faculty whose appointments enrich the University, especially when candidates require special incentives to influence their decision to accept an offer elsewhere or to remain with CUNY. These appointments are expected to contribute to CUNY’s commitment to recruit and retain an excellent faculty representing a rich diversity of gender and ethnicity.
The five Distinguished Professors are:
Baruch College
Distinguished Professor of Art History Gail Levin.
An outstanding scholar, biographer and art historian, Professor Levin’s international reputation is based on the 18 books she has written or edited, including her definitive studies of Edward Hopper, her current work on Judy Chicago, and her developing interests in feminist art and Eastern European Jewish immigrant influences on currents of American modernist art. Her work as a curator, particularly at the Whitney Museum of American Art, has deepened the understanding of American modernist art, including abstract impressionism. She has been teaching at Baruch College since 1986 and was a visiting professor at the CUNY Graduate Center in 1979 when she published her first two volumes on Hopper and her work on Synchronism and American Abstractionism. Her work on Hopper was recently cited in the Wall Street Journal as one of the most influential studies of the century and one of the five most influential artist biographies of all time. Besides her many books, Dr. Levin has published numerous articles and given many invited presentations and lectures, both in the United States and abroad. Among her many awards are the Distinguished Fulbright Chair, the National Association of Women Artists Award for Biography and Art History, and the National Endowment for the Humanities grant.
The City College of New York
Distinguished Professor of Architecture Michael Sorkin
One of the most influential scholars of urban design of the past two decades, his 14 books, countless articles and influential positions as Contributing Editor to Architectural Record and as Architecture Critic of the Village Voice for a decade have shaped the field of urban design both in the United States and abroad. His work takes on the most difficult politicized problems in urban design today, and includes the voices of all those affected. His books Exquisite Corpse, and Local Code are considered classics of Urban Planning theory and criticism. On the faculty of City College’s School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design since 2000, he has instituted two lecture series, bringing to the campus Nobel Prize winners, distinguished authors, and public figures to discuss the life of cities.
From 1993 to 2000 he was Professor of Urbanism and Director of the Institute of Urbanism at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. A Visiting Professor at a number of universities, he was most recently the 40th Anniversary Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Aarhus School of Architecture and the Eliel Saarinen Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan. As an urban designer, his most recent projects include the Shanghai Main Station District Master Plan in Shanghai, China; the Almere Hout Master Plan in Almere, Netherlands, and the East Darling Harbor Master Plan in Sydney, Australia.
The Graduate School and University Center
Distinguished Professor of History James Oakes
One of the leading historians of 19th century America, Professor Oakes has an international reputation for path-breaking scholarship. In a series of influential books and essays, he tackled some of the most important questions about the history of the United States from the Revolution through the Civil War. His early work focused on the South, examining slavery as an economic and social system that shaped Southern life. His more recent work examined antislavery thinking in the north and the political processes that led to emancipation. His books, The Ruling Race (1982; second edition 1998), Slavery and Freedom: An interpretation of the Old South (1990) and the latest The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics (2007) are considered pioneering and influential, each having changed the way historians now consider antebellum planters, American slavery and the Old South.
An alumnus of Baruch College, Dr. Oakes holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California/Berkeley. He has been on the faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center since 1997 and the holder of the Graduate School Humanities Chair since 1998. Prior to coming to CUNY, he taught at Princeton University and Northwestern University.
Hunter College
Distinguished Professor of English Peter Carey
One of the most original, talented and prolific writers in the English language today, Peter Carey has won the Booker Prize twice, the Commonwealth Prize twice and many other distinctions. He has been named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded three honorary doctorates. His work has been translated into at least 30 languages. Three of his novels are considered masterpieces—The True History of the Kelly Gang, Oscar and Lucinda, and Jack Maggs, and two have been made into films —Oscar and Lucinda and Bliss. He joined the Hunter College faculty in 2003, having been a Visiting Professor the previous Fall. As Director of Hunter’s MFA program in Creative Writing, which the Village Voice in October called “the Best MFA in New York City,” Professor Carey has attracted leading writers to participate in the Distinguished Writers Series including Toni Morrison, Eavan Boland, Annie Proulx and Ian McEwan. He has helped develop the unique Hertog Fellows Program in which MFA students win fellowships as research assistants for major writers such as Salman Rushdie and Toni Morrison. Among the many students whose talents he has nurtured is 2006 Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai.
Queens College
Distinguished Professor of Italian American Studies Fred Gardaphé
Professor Gardaphé’s extensive groundbreaking work has single-handedly redefined what academics, scholars and the popular culture consider Italian Americana in both this country and in Italy. Previously considered to be on the periphery of ethnic studies, the field has been changed by his pioneering scholarship which introduced a new critical and theoretical method of examining the effect of cultural myths and differences. His revolutionary new critical theory expanded the field to include those not only in the field of literature, but also philosophers, historians, anthropologists and other social scientists. His prolific scholarship includes writing seven works of fiction, six non-fiction books, as well as editing half a dozen more, and writing scores of articles, essays and book chapters. His latest book, From Wiseguys to Wise Men: Masculinities and the Italian American Gangster, has earned wide acclaim for its thorough examination of the gangster figure, a topic that many other Italian American academics were reluctant to broach. He has also helped develop a bibliography of all Italian American writing, more than 3,000 listings so far, that is considered the essential reference in the field.
Joining Queens College this semester, Professor Gardaphé comes from SUNY Stony Brook, where he was Director of the Italian American Studies Program and a professor in the Department of European Languages, Literatures and Cultures. He founded and edits the SUNY Press Series in Italian American Studies and is co-creator of the journal VIA (Voices in Italian Americana). He has received many grants and awards, including the Pietro di Donato and John Fante Literary Award in 2005 and the Person of the Year award at the American Italian Cultural Roundtable in 2001. Among his major professional involvements, he is founder and executive committee member of the Italian American Discussion Group, president of the American Italian Historical Association and President of MELUS (Multi-Ethnic Literature in the United States.)
The City University of New York was founded in 1847 as the Free Academy in New York City. The City University of New York is the nation’s largest urban public university. CUNY comprises 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the Graduate School and University Center, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Law at Queens College, the CUNY School of Professional Studies, and the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education. The University serves more than 231,000 degree-credit students and 230,000 adult, continuing and professional education students. College Now, the University’s academic enrichment program for 32,500 high school students, is offered at CUNY campuses and more than 300 high schools throughout the five boroughs of the City of New York. The University offers online baccalaureate degrees through the School of Professional Studies and individualized bachelor’s degrees through the CUNY Baccalaureate. The University Teacher Academy provides free tuition for highly motivated mathematics and science majors who seek teaching careers in the city.
##